Thursday, March 23, 2006
Back from the mountains and things are going very well on all fronts. Three of us went up – Penney (who arrived at the same time as I did and has been sharing responsibility for Makhelefane with me – but doing most of the work), Shauna (a ‘youngster’ (24) who had just arrived and will be at Makhefane for the next six weeks) and moi). We discussed plans for the new building. The school principal there is like the Godmother for the whole district and each day a work crew of men and women come from a particular village nearby to work on the building. The foundation is done and the walls are rising. They are entirely made of stone and mud. Penney says the construction is very much like dry, rubble walls in England. The wall is about 80 cm thick and has large stones on the outside and inside and smaller ones and mud in between. They work with great skill and few tools. Including working a tiny quarry they have started near the work site, I have only seen a long, steel pole, two shovels, a pick and a trowel. They do not use a level and their line for keeping the wall straight is woven from grass.
MONEY ALERT CANCELLED – it turns out that there Help Lesotho has enough money to pay for the door, windows and roof materials along with the shoes (below) so no need to donate for this project. If anyone would like to donate, the Help Lesotho site (helplesotho.ca) lists a number of projects needing support. In addition, you can support a poor child so that they continue in school. The number of children with heartbreaking stories is so large.
I have spent the morning shopping for school shoes for children at Makhelefane. There are 99 students who do not have shoes and winter is coming – last winter, a large number of kids were coming to school barefoot, even when there was snow on the ground. One child died of pneumonia last winter. Buying so many children’s shoes is like buying one pair. You know the kids are growing like mad so you want something not too costly. At the same time, you do not want them to fall apart on you (especially considering the rugged conditions in the mountains). There are shoes made in Lesotho, but the manager of a large local store (who sells them) says they are not very good and the soles tend to break. Not sure if I mentioned it before, but I bought one girl in the orphan residence here a new pair of sandals in January. She was wearing different shoes on each foot and one of them was missing half of its sole. It is very sad to see such things.
While we there, Penney and I had a really neat experience. She intends to return next year as do Ray and Carol and we had heard of a school called Bokoko which is much poorer than Makhelfane – which is hard to believe considering. We decided to go and see this place. It was 3 ½ hours walk each way over very difficult terrain – perhaps 500 m of vertical and rain on the way back which made it very slippery - and all at 7500'+ elevation. We had to ford a roaring river which was at mid-thigh level for Penney on the way back. Very hard to estimate how far we walked but I would guess 20 to 23 km. The children there, the most attractive little ones you could ever imagine, had never seen a white person. Their first reaction was to run away in fear but then curiosity took over – they would get close and then back away when you looked at them. After a little while we were playing games based on the idea that they were afraid – it was very cute. They all wanted to shake hands and see what my skin was like up close.
The little school has one room which is much smaller than an average Canadian classroom – but there are 88 kids in 5 grades. It is mud inside, floor and walls and there a few holes in the roof. The windows do not have glass and cannot be covered since they are the only source of light (other than the door). Fortunately we had a teacher from Makhelfane there as guide and translator as the two teacher s do not really speak English. We are now planning what can be done there next year. Any materials that would be needed (lumber, paint, glass, etc) would have to be carried in on donkeys. Penney, Ray and Carol could go in on horseback, although it is steep in places.
We could have borrowed horses to go there but it was the funeral of one of the local chiefs and just about everyone with a horse was going. We were invited to come to the funeral and to say a few words (which would have been interesting since few of the folks there would have understood). We begged off which was good because it was starting to get dark by the time we got ‘home’. My muscles and cardio were up to the task, but my knees were pretty sore as was my lower back. In total, it was more than worth it to experience something like this. A last comment about this – Bokoko only goes to Grade 5 and the Grade 6 and 7 kids (there are currently 6 of them) walk this route every day. It boggles the imagination. Almost worth teaching kids in Canada again so that I could respond to their complaints about how hard it is to get to school on snowy days.
Only in Africa
- Speaking of horses … if I see one more example of this I will puke … a family is out for a journey in the mountains, dad is riding his horse, mom is walking with the baby strapped on her back and a load on her head. And this is where a good horse is worth $1000 or more. They could both walk and have a fortune to spend on things that might benefit the whole family.
- Speaking of lack of gender equity … the shoes mentioned before were for 64 girls and 35 boys and yet the population of the school is pretty equal.
MONEY ALERT CANCELLED – it turns out that there Help Lesotho has enough money to pay for the door, windows and roof materials along with the shoes (below) so no need to donate for this project. If anyone would like to donate, the Help Lesotho site (helplesotho.ca) lists a number of projects needing support. In addition, you can support a poor child so that they continue in school. The number of children with heartbreaking stories is so large.
I have spent the morning shopping for school shoes for children at Makhelefane. There are 99 students who do not have shoes and winter is coming – last winter, a large number of kids were coming to school barefoot, even when there was snow on the ground. One child died of pneumonia last winter. Buying so many children’s shoes is like buying one pair. You know the kids are growing like mad so you want something not too costly. At the same time, you do not want them to fall apart on you (especially considering the rugged conditions in the mountains). There are shoes made in Lesotho, but the manager of a large local store (who sells them) says they are not very good and the soles tend to break. Not sure if I mentioned it before, but I bought one girl in the orphan residence here a new pair of sandals in January. She was wearing different shoes on each foot and one of them was missing half of its sole. It is very sad to see such things.
While we there, Penney and I had a really neat experience. She intends to return next year as do Ray and Carol and we had heard of a school called Bokoko which is much poorer than Makhelfane – which is hard to believe considering. We decided to go and see this place. It was 3 ½ hours walk each way over very difficult terrain – perhaps 500 m of vertical and rain on the way back which made it very slippery - and all at 7500'+ elevation. We had to ford a roaring river which was at mid-thigh level for Penney on the way back. Very hard to estimate how far we walked but I would guess 20 to 23 km. The children there, the most attractive little ones you could ever imagine, had never seen a white person. Their first reaction was to run away in fear but then curiosity took over – they would get close and then back away when you looked at them. After a little while we were playing games based on the idea that they were afraid – it was very cute. They all wanted to shake hands and see what my skin was like up close.
The little school has one room which is much smaller than an average Canadian classroom – but there are 88 kids in 5 grades. It is mud inside, floor and walls and there a few holes in the roof. The windows do not have glass and cannot be covered since they are the only source of light (other than the door). Fortunately we had a teacher from Makhelfane there as guide and translator as the two teacher s do not really speak English. We are now planning what can be done there next year. Any materials that would be needed (lumber, paint, glass, etc) would have to be carried in on donkeys. Penney, Ray and Carol could go in on horseback, although it is steep in places.
We could have borrowed horses to go there but it was the funeral of one of the local chiefs and just about everyone with a horse was going. We were invited to come to the funeral and to say a few words (which would have been interesting since few of the folks there would have understood). We begged off which was good because it was starting to get dark by the time we got ‘home’. My muscles and cardio were up to the task, but my knees were pretty sore as was my lower back. In total, it was more than worth it to experience something like this. A last comment about this – Bokoko only goes to Grade 5 and the Grade 6 and 7 kids (there are currently 6 of them) walk this route every day. It boggles the imagination. Almost worth teaching kids in Canada again so that I could respond to their complaints about how hard it is to get to school on snowy days.
Only in Africa
- Speaking of horses … if I see one more example of this I will puke … a family is out for a journey in the mountains, dad is riding his horse, mom is walking with the baby strapped on her back and a load on her head. And this is where a good horse is worth $1000 or more. They could both walk and have a fortune to spend on things that might benefit the whole family.
- Speaking of lack of gender equity … the shoes mentioned before were for 64 girls and 35 boys and yet the population of the school is pretty equal.
Sunday, March 19, 2006
Time in Lesotho getting short
This blog will be posted a week late since Saturday, March 11 is Moshoeshoe Day (more on that later) and the internet café is closed. I have moved on to my new school, St Charles HS in a place called Seboche. Not that it matters, but Momohau was due south of Leribe for about 2 ½ hours and St Charles is north-east about an hour and half. I went on Thursday. I was supposed to be picked up at noon but it was more like 330 (this is about typical for how things work here). On the way we stopped seven times for various reasons (again this is typical). Had an interesting experience at one of the stops. There was someone riding a donkey toward the truck and it looked like the donkey was going to keep going straight and run into the truck until the rider directed him away. I now have a better understanding of the intelligence level of these animals.
St Charles is in the foothills in a pretty remote spot with some beautiful mountains not far away. I may try to climb one scenic mountain that looks about 1 km away but may be further than that. The school is quite attractive and about 750 m from where I am living (all downhill on the way there). I am renting a lovely rondavel from a lady. It is a beautiful compound with her house next door (her teenage son lives there). This is the nicest rondavel I have seen (I hope to post pictures when I get back to Canada). It is so well-kept that she even sweeps the dirt in the driveway (she has no car) with a broom leaving an interesting pattern. The pit toilet is not far and well-built and very clean. Water is at a community tap about five minutes away. The only problem is that there is a mouse there. I bought some rat/mouse killer but apparently it takes a few days to work. I will spread this on Sunday and hope it works quickly I have already lost a loaf of bread and I have tried to hang a bag with food from the roof of the rondavel. Will find if it works when I go back.
Leaving Mamohau was a bittersweet experience. The staff and kids were sorry to see me go (one of the older teachers – a very dear soul, said it was sad I was going because “you have become one of us”) At the same time I had come to realize that significant changes were not likely to happen there. The situation at St Charles seems very different from Mamohau. At the former the staff (or at least the department heads that I had a long meeting with) seem very keen and very professional. At Mamohau, the teachers were not like this. The kids at Mamohau work very hard with multiple study sessions each day (including 7 am and 730 pm). At St Charles, the kids apparently are not committed to academics and, since the school is not for boarders, they go home to do chores and have homes without electricity. I do not have electricity and know what it is like to read by candle and oil light. More on St Charles later …
Back to King Moshoeshoe … He created the nation of Lesotho (it was called Basutoland in British protectorate days) in the 1840s. At this time, the Zulus under a king named Shaka and the Matabele under Mzilikazi created a time of ethnic cleansing called the Mfecane in the area to the north and east of here. Moshoeshoe was the chief of a small tribe and he led his people into the mountains of northern Lesotho for safety. Other tribes came here and he came them protection in return for their acceptance of him as king. Over time this came to be a largish group and the Basuto nation was formed. It was more of a confederacy than a tribe. One of the results of this is that the people here share a language but not an appearance. Especially in the mountains there is considerable variation in how the people look. Some have very light complexions – in some cases about my colour with the tan I have. Others have faces with features that look distinctly oriental. Anyway, today is Moshoeshoe Day which is one of the few national holidays. BTW, the political leadership has gone downhill since Mo the Great – who did clever things like welcoming French missionaries into the country to give him advice about how to deal with the British.
White people are called Mahoa (singular is Lahoa). When you meet Mahoa, you can virtually always assume that they are aid workers of one sort or another. Friday night at the Leribe Hotel seems to be Mahoa night. A recent one had a group of Welsh teachers, a US Peace Corps guy, a Canadian doctor who works at the Ontario Health Association clinic here, a French woman who works with World Health Organization, and half a dozen of us from Help Lesotho. When I was in Maseru getting my visa extended, we met two Germans who were doing something with the establishment of local governments here. In the whole time I have been here, I have seen a total of about 6 tourists.
I have been doing some work with getting sponsorships in Canada for students here. One of the things that is really hard is to ask kids how many of their parents are alive since the sponsorships are aimed for those who are single or double orphans. In Canada, we take it for granted that kids have parents (not always the case); but here, most of the kids seem to have one parent at most. I interviewed 8 students for sponsorships and there were a total of 7 parents for them with 2 of them described as ‘very ill’ which means one thing here unfortunately.
This brings me back to funerals – they are just so common here. It is by far the most important social event. Every week I know one or more people who have funerals to go to. It is just so depressing that no one even questions it.
In the ‘Only in Africa’ category:
- the internet café is called something like Cecil Business Services, but should be called Cecilia Business Services since it is run by Cecilia. It seems like having a woman’s name does not work here
- today we went for lunch in South Africa! This involves a fairly short journey to a town called Matputsoe. From here you walk across a bridge with lots of barbed wire and go through customs/immigration there. We walked into the very Boer town of Ficksburg and had lunch in a hotel there and then reversed the process. What a difference! You get there and the houses are nice, it is cleaner, the cars are fancier and there are trees everywhere. There are some white people there but many more blacks and it all seemed pretty prosperous.
- One of the volunteers is at a school where they have a double class of almost 100 students with two teachers. There is an empty classroom next door and when she asked about why they did not split the class she was told that near the end of last year the key broke off in the lock of the door (a common occurrence here since the locks have sort of skeleton keys and they are made of a soft metal) and it has not been fixed.
-- MONEY ALERT --
I am asking if anyone would be interested in contributing money to help complete the community hall (which will be used as a classroom to get the kids out of the tent) at Makhlefekane. The community will be building it from local stone that they collect from the fields but have no money for the windows, doors and roof. I have a lot of use for these people because they are trying to do their best for their children in a community where there is virtually no money and often not enough food. One of the volunteers is raising money to buy shoes for children who walk to school barefoot – even in winter with snow on the ground. If you want to donate for that instead, that would be great.
I have prices for the roof and if anyone would like to chip some money to buy a roof truss, a piece of corrugated iron roofing or something else, that would be great.
If you would like to think of it like this, here are the costs of various things if you would like to buy something:
- a roof truss (shaped like a triangle with bracing – we need 14) is about $40
- a piece of corrugated roofing (we need 42) is about $20
- a piece of translucent fiberglass (so there is more light inside the building – we need 16) is about $30
- the steel door and frame is $140
- depending on size, windows are $30 or $60 (we need two of each)
Donations are tax deductible and should be sent to Help Lesotho, 11 Keefer St., Ottawa, K1N 2J9. Can you indicate with your donation that it is to go to “Makhelefane roof project” and could you drop me an email so I know how much money has been raised for this. Thanks to everyone.
*** It is March 20th and I can update the blog and get it posted.
St Charles is turning out to be great. I wish that I had been here first. The staff are really trying to improve their school and they work hard. Also (teacher) attendance it much better here as well. There are problems though. The students do not do very well on the national exams, I think largely because they do not do much homework. Almost no students have electricity in their homes and quite a few families cannot even afford candles. I have helped my landlady’s son with math by lantern light which was an experience to be sure. As fall comes on here it gets dark earlier and earlier.
I figured out my house!. I thought it looked vaguely familiar and now I realize that it is a Hobbit house from Lord of the Rings. This is more than a coincidence since Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein which is in South Africa not far from here. He left as a child but the image of the rondavel stayed in his mind apparently. Me Francisca, my land lady, is the Martha Stewart of the area. The inside of the house is finished in a salmon colour with off-white patches about 4” by 2”. I thought it was paint but it is actually two colours of mud applied with a wool pad. It is very attractive indeed.
I have won out over the rat with the rat killer. I found it dead under my bed mid-week. It was pretty large and nasty.
There is a young Peace Corps volunteer from North Carolina at the school a few days a week. She was actually here to work with the agriculture department but a very nasty sexual harassment situation has developed there and the Corps have withdrawn her from that job. She is teaching biology and health even though she has no teacher training. Quite a challenge with classes of fifty or so in a language the students do not know well. Apparently the students can understand her slight Carolina drawl more easily than my accent. She is somewhat involved with a situation where a step-father has been raping a 9 year old child. This sort of thing happens pretty often around here unfortunately. A real complication is that if (when) the man is put in jail (likely to happen) the family will have no financial support. I checked with the Sister who is the principal at the school and she said the protocol is that the chief is informed. He investigates and brings in the police. It is also his responsibility to look after the family.
This weekend four of us went to one of the few well-developed tourist facilities in the country – Malealea lodge. There where about 30 or so tourists there including some on adventure tours of Southern Africa in an off-road bus (a large powerful vehicle to be sure), some long-distance hikers, some aid workers taking a break. They have comfortable accommodation and showers that produce large amounts of hot water. This may not sound like much, but when you are used to a trickle it matters! I had not had a proper shower since mid-January in Jo’burg. We went ‘pony-trekking’ for three hours. These are actually small horses very used to the rough terrain. It was great fun and my new friend Waldo the Wonder Horse let me feel like I was steering except for moments when he really wanted to be in charge (over rocks or down steep bits). We went out of an hour or so and then hiked down into a gorge to look at San (Bushmen) rock paintings that are something more than 10,000 years old. The San have been dated in the area to 27,000 years ago but the paintings are newer.
Enough for now. I am off to the mountains in an hour or so. Apparently they are getting frost there some nights now.
St Charles is in the foothills in a pretty remote spot with some beautiful mountains not far away. I may try to climb one scenic mountain that looks about 1 km away but may be further than that. The school is quite attractive and about 750 m from where I am living (all downhill on the way there). I am renting a lovely rondavel from a lady. It is a beautiful compound with her house next door (her teenage son lives there). This is the nicest rondavel I have seen (I hope to post pictures when I get back to Canada). It is so well-kept that she even sweeps the dirt in the driveway (she has no car) with a broom leaving an interesting pattern. The pit toilet is not far and well-built and very clean. Water is at a community tap about five minutes away. The only problem is that there is a mouse there. I bought some rat/mouse killer but apparently it takes a few days to work. I will spread this on Sunday and hope it works quickly I have already lost a loaf of bread and I have tried to hang a bag with food from the roof of the rondavel. Will find if it works when I go back.
Leaving Mamohau was a bittersweet experience. The staff and kids were sorry to see me go (one of the older teachers – a very dear soul, said it was sad I was going because “you have become one of us”) At the same time I had come to realize that significant changes were not likely to happen there. The situation at St Charles seems very different from Mamohau. At the former the staff (or at least the department heads that I had a long meeting with) seem very keen and very professional. At Mamohau, the teachers were not like this. The kids at Mamohau work very hard with multiple study sessions each day (including 7 am and 730 pm). At St Charles, the kids apparently are not committed to academics and, since the school is not for boarders, they go home to do chores and have homes without electricity. I do not have electricity and know what it is like to read by candle and oil light. More on St Charles later …
Back to King Moshoeshoe … He created the nation of Lesotho (it was called Basutoland in British protectorate days) in the 1840s. At this time, the Zulus under a king named Shaka and the Matabele under Mzilikazi created a time of ethnic cleansing called the Mfecane in the area to the north and east of here. Moshoeshoe was the chief of a small tribe and he led his people into the mountains of northern Lesotho for safety. Other tribes came here and he came them protection in return for their acceptance of him as king. Over time this came to be a largish group and the Basuto nation was formed. It was more of a confederacy than a tribe. One of the results of this is that the people here share a language but not an appearance. Especially in the mountains there is considerable variation in how the people look. Some have very light complexions – in some cases about my colour with the tan I have. Others have faces with features that look distinctly oriental. Anyway, today is Moshoeshoe Day which is one of the few national holidays. BTW, the political leadership has gone downhill since Mo the Great – who did clever things like welcoming French missionaries into the country to give him advice about how to deal with the British.
White people are called Mahoa (singular is Lahoa). When you meet Mahoa, you can virtually always assume that they are aid workers of one sort or another. Friday night at the Leribe Hotel seems to be Mahoa night. A recent one had a group of Welsh teachers, a US Peace Corps guy, a Canadian doctor who works at the Ontario Health Association clinic here, a French woman who works with World Health Organization, and half a dozen of us from Help Lesotho. When I was in Maseru getting my visa extended, we met two Germans who were doing something with the establishment of local governments here. In the whole time I have been here, I have seen a total of about 6 tourists.
I have been doing some work with getting sponsorships in Canada for students here. One of the things that is really hard is to ask kids how many of their parents are alive since the sponsorships are aimed for those who are single or double orphans. In Canada, we take it for granted that kids have parents (not always the case); but here, most of the kids seem to have one parent at most. I interviewed 8 students for sponsorships and there were a total of 7 parents for them with 2 of them described as ‘very ill’ which means one thing here unfortunately.
This brings me back to funerals – they are just so common here. It is by far the most important social event. Every week I know one or more people who have funerals to go to. It is just so depressing that no one even questions it.
In the ‘Only in Africa’ category:
- the internet café is called something like Cecil Business Services, but should be called Cecilia Business Services since it is run by Cecilia. It seems like having a woman’s name does not work here
- today we went for lunch in South Africa! This involves a fairly short journey to a town called Matputsoe. From here you walk across a bridge with lots of barbed wire and go through customs/immigration there. We walked into the very Boer town of Ficksburg and had lunch in a hotel there and then reversed the process. What a difference! You get there and the houses are nice, it is cleaner, the cars are fancier and there are trees everywhere. There are some white people there but many more blacks and it all seemed pretty prosperous.
- One of the volunteers is at a school where they have a double class of almost 100 students with two teachers. There is an empty classroom next door and when she asked about why they did not split the class she was told that near the end of last year the key broke off in the lock of the door (a common occurrence here since the locks have sort of skeleton keys and they are made of a soft metal) and it has not been fixed.
-- MONEY ALERT --
I am asking if anyone would be interested in contributing money to help complete the community hall (which will be used as a classroom to get the kids out of the tent) at Makhlefekane. The community will be building it from local stone that they collect from the fields but have no money for the windows, doors and roof. I have a lot of use for these people because they are trying to do their best for their children in a community where there is virtually no money and often not enough food. One of the volunteers is raising money to buy shoes for children who walk to school barefoot – even in winter with snow on the ground. If you want to donate for that instead, that would be great.
I have prices for the roof and if anyone would like to chip some money to buy a roof truss, a piece of corrugated iron roofing or something else, that would be great.
If you would like to think of it like this, here are the costs of various things if you would like to buy something:
- a roof truss (shaped like a triangle with bracing – we need 14) is about $40
- a piece of corrugated roofing (we need 42) is about $20
- a piece of translucent fiberglass (so there is more light inside the building – we need 16) is about $30
- the steel door and frame is $140
- depending on size, windows are $30 or $60 (we need two of each)
Donations are tax deductible and should be sent to Help Lesotho, 11 Keefer St., Ottawa, K1N 2J9. Can you indicate with your donation that it is to go to “Makhelefane roof project” and could you drop me an email so I know how much money has been raised for this. Thanks to everyone.
*** It is March 20th and I can update the blog and get it posted.
St Charles is turning out to be great. I wish that I had been here first. The staff are really trying to improve their school and they work hard. Also (teacher) attendance it much better here as well. There are problems though. The students do not do very well on the national exams, I think largely because they do not do much homework. Almost no students have electricity in their homes and quite a few families cannot even afford candles. I have helped my landlady’s son with math by lantern light which was an experience to be sure. As fall comes on here it gets dark earlier and earlier.
I figured out my house!. I thought it looked vaguely familiar and now I realize that it is a Hobbit house from Lord of the Rings. This is more than a coincidence since Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein which is in South Africa not far from here. He left as a child but the image of the rondavel stayed in his mind apparently. Me Francisca, my land lady, is the Martha Stewart of the area. The inside of the house is finished in a salmon colour with off-white patches about 4” by 2”. I thought it was paint but it is actually two colours of mud applied with a wool pad. It is very attractive indeed.
I have won out over the rat with the rat killer. I found it dead under my bed mid-week. It was pretty large and nasty.
There is a young Peace Corps volunteer from North Carolina at the school a few days a week. She was actually here to work with the agriculture department but a very nasty sexual harassment situation has developed there and the Corps have withdrawn her from that job. She is teaching biology and health even though she has no teacher training. Quite a challenge with classes of fifty or so in a language the students do not know well. Apparently the students can understand her slight Carolina drawl more easily than my accent. She is somewhat involved with a situation where a step-father has been raping a 9 year old child. This sort of thing happens pretty often around here unfortunately. A real complication is that if (when) the man is put in jail (likely to happen) the family will have no financial support. I checked with the Sister who is the principal at the school and she said the protocol is that the chief is informed. He investigates and brings in the police. It is also his responsibility to look after the family.
This weekend four of us went to one of the few well-developed tourist facilities in the country – Malealea lodge. There where about 30 or so tourists there including some on adventure tours of Southern Africa in an off-road bus (a large powerful vehicle to be sure), some long-distance hikers, some aid workers taking a break. They have comfortable accommodation and showers that produce large amounts of hot water. This may not sound like much, but when you are used to a trickle it matters! I had not had a proper shower since mid-January in Jo’burg. We went ‘pony-trekking’ for three hours. These are actually small horses very used to the rough terrain. It was great fun and my new friend Waldo the Wonder Horse let me feel like I was steering except for moments when he really wanted to be in charge (over rocks or down steep bits). We went out of an hour or so and then hiked down into a gorge to look at San (Bushmen) rock paintings that are something more than 10,000 years old. The San have been dated in the area to 27,000 years ago but the paintings are newer.
Enough for now. I am off to the mountains in an hour or so. Apparently they are getting frost there some nights now.
Saturday, March 04, 2006
'March'ing to a new location
The weather is starting to turn now. There is a definite feeling of early fall in the morning, especially in the mountains. The good news is that it has not rained in four days. Hope this is a trend. The newspaper here is saying that abnormally high rains are expected for March. We shall see.
I am being transferred from Mamohau to a school in the foothills called St. Charles next week (March 8th). I really was not getting anywhere at Mamohau since they did not really understand why I was there and there was no real commitment from principal or staff to school improvement and change. I think that much of the problem was that Help Lesotho did not have accurate information about the school’s situation and there had not been enough liaison between them and the school to establish what the school really wanted (they were looking for a free teacher for a whole year) and what the NGO wanted to provide. The school had my work plan months ago but no one would admit having read it. I think the school could be very much improved but it was not going to happen with them thinking that everything in the school was just fine.
Apparently St Charles are very excited that I am coming and want help with math (who doesn’t here). I may also be helping at another school near there called Bokoro. These are about an hour north-east of Leribe, past a larger town called Butha-Bothe, but in the country somewhere. More next time about them. I also have to figure out how to get my junk down from the mountain and where my living arrangements will be at St Charles. My time there will be somewhat short as I am going to tour around southern South Africa for the first two weeks in April. During this time I also want to talk to some people in the other end of Lesotho about a possible tourism micro-enterprise to get people from North America and Europe to come to Lesotho and South Africa. Little is known about the former and there is a lot of misinformation about the latter at home. Also the last week in March is used for quarterly exams so any teaching I do will have to be before then. I can, hopefully, meet with teachers during the exam time.
This week we did out major project at Makhelefane, way up in the mountains. We had the wood precut in Leribe and loaded up a 4wd pickup that we hired (it looked like it might not fit but did). We also took paint and other things. When we got there, we assembled 25 benches (each bench could hold 5 small bums) and fixed another 10 or so that needed work. We also painted the walls of one classroom white – the walls and floor are coated with a mixture of mud and cow dung (no smell though!) but the result is a dark brown wall that absorbs all the light. The principal said that having the white walls was like having two or three new windows. It was a remarkable change.
We also took four new blackboards since the ones they had were literally falling apart. The blackboards are very simple. You buy a piece of masonite and paint it with special blackboard paint. The school had some green paint and some black paint (provided by UNICEF). In addition, Penney, who hit up her family and friends for money for this, had 230 school bags made from denim by a local woman. These cost less than $3 each and are very nicely made (with a name tag) – this allows the kids to carry their stuff to and from school. Some kids walk for as much as 90 minutes each way to school. We also made what are called lapboards (from more Masonite) for the kids to write on (there is not room for desks if we could afford them). The final purchase was 100+ spoons. The kids get breakfast and lunch at school and had to eat their sorghum porridge with their hands.
It is a remarkably poor place. There is evidence of foreign aid everywhere – a ‘school in a box’ from Denmark, corn meal from the US, an ongoing food supply system from the UN World Food Program, and us. Penney is now trying to get some money to buy shoes for the kids. Last winter a student who walked to school in bare feet, caught something and died. This is in an area where it does snow and temperatures can be below zero.
The people work hard. They have gotten fed up with waiting for the government to build a promised new school building to replace the tent that is used for grades 1 to 3. They have started to build a ‘community hall’ in which these classes can be taught until the building appears (the Japanese govt have just build something like 200 classrooms to replace tents in various places). The building will be made of local rocks that are piled up dry (no mortar). The women carry the rocks to the site on their heads and the men have dug the foundation and are now building the walls. The gaps are filled with the mud/dung mixture. They have no money to put a roof on the building but I think I will try to organize donations to pay for this. I have a lot of use for people who do their best to be self-sufficient in a very difficult environment like this.
Apparently there are schools off the (terrible) road to the diamond mine that are much worse off than Makhlefane. I can’t imagine what they are like. To get to them, you take the 4wd and then walk. Stuff that is needed there is carried by donkeys or people.
In the Only In Africa (OIA) category:
- One of the volunteers, Carol, was heading up into the mountains in a taxi (15 passenger) when they were stopped at a police checkpoint. Turned out the driver did not have a license, so he was told to drive to the local police station where we was escorted by two cops to the holding cells (not having a license did not seem to be a problem with this drive). The packed taxi was left sitting there until someone called the company to complain.
- The things that women carry on their heads is remarkable. At the school BBQ a while back, one of the women was carrying a case of 24 beer on her head and another in her arms. I said that in much of Canada, this talent would make her very popular. I saw a woman with a huge cabbage on her head – not only was it heavy and hard, it was round.
-Women do so much work here. On the drive here – at something like 9000’ elevation there was a couple traveling to the nearby village (there is nothing else around) which was about 5 km away. The may was riding on his horse with no packages to hold while the wife was walking behind with a big burden on her head. Some of the really bright high school girls are becoming feminists, even though they do not even know the word or concept. I think this is a very hopeful development for the country.
- One of the Bible teachers at Mamohau runs 4 or 5 marathons a year. He is 56, about 5’2” and has quite a pot-belly. He did a marathon in a nearby part of South Africa last weekend called the Surrender Hill Marathon. Not sure if the name refers to the course (the finish is uphill) or to some Boer War battle. He has decided he wants to run the Two Oceans race in South Africa next. This little race is only 82 km but before he does it he has to join a track club because only sanctioned athletes can go in this race.
- Teacher absence (and principal absence) is a huge problem. It is not that they take a day off – they will go for 4 or 5 days at a time.
- Classes are only 40 minutes and teachers are routinely late. I checked for two classes and in each case only one teacher of about 10 was on time for class (this was the same person). Lateness varied from 2 minutes to 10 minutes.
- Funerals are the most important social event here. Most are on Saturdays and for example, two of the nuns at the convent here and one of the sponsored girls are at funerals today. Just about the biggest industry are funeral parlours and they all seem to be expanding and have fancy new hearses (Mercedes and Toyota).
- It is not considered rude to interrupt a conversation here. Someone just walks up and starts talking to the person you are talking to – no apologies or anything like that.
- You get used to things being so different. In Mahkelefane, Ray was staying in a different rondavel. We realized that we had to walk up the road and turn right at the pig that did not move for hours at a time (until food came). Having cows and sheep in the main street or people riding horses and donkeys are the new normal. I wonder about my reaction back home.
- For those who don’t know, I drive a Volvo V40 (mini-Volvo). I just saw one here and it looked huge. The cars here are quite small – not a surprise since gas is about the same price as Canada.
- At Makhlefane, the students make their own skipping ropes by braiding grass. They are quite interesting things to look at.
- When we there, the most hi-tech things within several km were the LED flashlights we had.
- It was an interesting experience having an audience of a hundred or more little faces watching closely as we nailed benches together.
All for now.
I am being transferred from Mamohau to a school in the foothills called St. Charles next week (March 8th). I really was not getting anywhere at Mamohau since they did not really understand why I was there and there was no real commitment from principal or staff to school improvement and change. I think that much of the problem was that Help Lesotho did not have accurate information about the school’s situation and there had not been enough liaison between them and the school to establish what the school really wanted (they were looking for a free teacher for a whole year) and what the NGO wanted to provide. The school had my work plan months ago but no one would admit having read it. I think the school could be very much improved but it was not going to happen with them thinking that everything in the school was just fine.
Apparently St Charles are very excited that I am coming and want help with math (who doesn’t here). I may also be helping at another school near there called Bokoro. These are about an hour north-east of Leribe, past a larger town called Butha-Bothe, but in the country somewhere. More next time about them. I also have to figure out how to get my junk down from the mountain and where my living arrangements will be at St Charles. My time there will be somewhat short as I am going to tour around southern South Africa for the first two weeks in April. During this time I also want to talk to some people in the other end of Lesotho about a possible tourism micro-enterprise to get people from North America and Europe to come to Lesotho and South Africa. Little is known about the former and there is a lot of misinformation about the latter at home. Also the last week in March is used for quarterly exams so any teaching I do will have to be before then. I can, hopefully, meet with teachers during the exam time.
This week we did out major project at Makhelefane, way up in the mountains. We had the wood precut in Leribe and loaded up a 4wd pickup that we hired (it looked like it might not fit but did). We also took paint and other things. When we got there, we assembled 25 benches (each bench could hold 5 small bums) and fixed another 10 or so that needed work. We also painted the walls of one classroom white – the walls and floor are coated with a mixture of mud and cow dung (no smell though!) but the result is a dark brown wall that absorbs all the light. The principal said that having the white walls was like having two or three new windows. It was a remarkable change.
We also took four new blackboards since the ones they had were literally falling apart. The blackboards are very simple. You buy a piece of masonite and paint it with special blackboard paint. The school had some green paint and some black paint (provided by UNICEF). In addition, Penney, who hit up her family and friends for money for this, had 230 school bags made from denim by a local woman. These cost less than $3 each and are very nicely made (with a name tag) – this allows the kids to carry their stuff to and from school. Some kids walk for as much as 90 minutes each way to school. We also made what are called lapboards (from more Masonite) for the kids to write on (there is not room for desks if we could afford them). The final purchase was 100+ spoons. The kids get breakfast and lunch at school and had to eat their sorghum porridge with their hands.
It is a remarkably poor place. There is evidence of foreign aid everywhere – a ‘school in a box’ from Denmark, corn meal from the US, an ongoing food supply system from the UN World Food Program, and us. Penney is now trying to get some money to buy shoes for the kids. Last winter a student who walked to school in bare feet, caught something and died. This is in an area where it does snow and temperatures can be below zero.
The people work hard. They have gotten fed up with waiting for the government to build a promised new school building to replace the tent that is used for grades 1 to 3. They have started to build a ‘community hall’ in which these classes can be taught until the building appears (the Japanese govt have just build something like 200 classrooms to replace tents in various places). The building will be made of local rocks that are piled up dry (no mortar). The women carry the rocks to the site on their heads and the men have dug the foundation and are now building the walls. The gaps are filled with the mud/dung mixture. They have no money to put a roof on the building but I think I will try to organize donations to pay for this. I have a lot of use for people who do their best to be self-sufficient in a very difficult environment like this.
Apparently there are schools off the (terrible) road to the diamond mine that are much worse off than Makhlefane. I can’t imagine what they are like. To get to them, you take the 4wd and then walk. Stuff that is needed there is carried by donkeys or people.
In the Only In Africa (OIA) category:
- One of the volunteers, Carol, was heading up into the mountains in a taxi (15 passenger) when they were stopped at a police checkpoint. Turned out the driver did not have a license, so he was told to drive to the local police station where we was escorted by two cops to the holding cells (not having a license did not seem to be a problem with this drive). The packed taxi was left sitting there until someone called the company to complain.
- The things that women carry on their heads is remarkable. At the school BBQ a while back, one of the women was carrying a case of 24 beer on her head and another in her arms. I said that in much of Canada, this talent would make her very popular. I saw a woman with a huge cabbage on her head – not only was it heavy and hard, it was round.
-Women do so much work here. On the drive here – at something like 9000’ elevation there was a couple traveling to the nearby village (there is nothing else around) which was about 5 km away. The may was riding on his horse with no packages to hold while the wife was walking behind with a big burden on her head. Some of the really bright high school girls are becoming feminists, even though they do not even know the word or concept. I think this is a very hopeful development for the country.
- One of the Bible teachers at Mamohau runs 4 or 5 marathons a year. He is 56, about 5’2” and has quite a pot-belly. He did a marathon in a nearby part of South Africa last weekend called the Surrender Hill Marathon. Not sure if the name refers to the course (the finish is uphill) or to some Boer War battle. He has decided he wants to run the Two Oceans race in South Africa next. This little race is only 82 km but before he does it he has to join a track club because only sanctioned athletes can go in this race.
- Teacher absence (and principal absence) is a huge problem. It is not that they take a day off – they will go for 4 or 5 days at a time.
- Classes are only 40 minutes and teachers are routinely late. I checked for two classes and in each case only one teacher of about 10 was on time for class (this was the same person). Lateness varied from 2 minutes to 10 minutes.
- Funerals are the most important social event here. Most are on Saturdays and for example, two of the nuns at the convent here and one of the sponsored girls are at funerals today. Just about the biggest industry are funeral parlours and they all seem to be expanding and have fancy new hearses (Mercedes and Toyota).
- It is not considered rude to interrupt a conversation here. Someone just walks up and starts talking to the person you are talking to – no apologies or anything like that.
- You get used to things being so different. In Mahkelefane, Ray was staying in a different rondavel. We realized that we had to walk up the road and turn right at the pig that did not move for hours at a time (until food came). Having cows and sheep in the main street or people riding horses and donkeys are the new normal. I wonder about my reaction back home.
- For those who don’t know, I drive a Volvo V40 (mini-Volvo). I just saw one here and it looked huge. The cars here are quite small – not a surprise since gas is about the same price as Canada.
- At Makhlefane, the students make their own skipping ropes by braiding grass. They are quite interesting things to look at.
- When we there, the most hi-tech things within several km were the LED flashlights we had.
- It was an interesting experience having an audience of a hundred or more little faces watching closely as we nailed benches together.
All for now.
